


The Conversation

by bbcsherlockian



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, POV John Watson, POV Sherlock Holmes, Unrequited Love, skinny love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-06
Updated: 2014-09-06
Packaged: 2018-02-16 09:57:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2265408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bbcsherlockian/pseuds/bbcsherlockian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A dialogue of sorts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Conversation

**Author's Note:**

> John's voice is in italics.

And now you’re staring at me from across the room.

_And now you’re staring at me from across the room._

Let me tell you that I’ve never wanted anyone so strongly, that I’ve never really wanted anyone at all before you came along.

_There’s a weight resting on the ring finger of my left hand._

Let me tell you. For the love of God, let me.

_It’s like your entire body is quivering with your mind. And I want to hold you, to let you breathe regularly but--_

But you see, if I said just one word - just one - all of the butterflies inside my chest that make a habit of stringing sentences together (which I’m not allowed to ever express) would come pouring out of my mouth like water--

_I am anchored here. To these floorboards. My tongue is anchored to the floor of my mouth._

\--and I wouldn’t be able to stop them.

_There is light streaming from behind you and getting caught in the tangled bunch of curls above your left temple._

Not even one.

_I want nothing more than to capture that flawed light. To hold it and to keep it somewhere warm._

I can see your eyes and they remind me of something hungry.

_I can see your eyes and I see you, but I don’t think you know this. And it’s boastful and I’m being presumptive - I know - but I think I’ve always been able to see you better than anyone._

But there’s something behind the starving gaze and that reminds me of something lonely. Or of something cold.

_You think you’re invisible and impeamble. You are vulnerable._

I don’t really understand.

_I want you to see how I see._

In my head, I walk towards you.

_I want to touch and to whisper strings of pointless knots into your skin and to be included in your light._

And I hold your waist gently between both my thumbs so that you may lean into me, and I may lean into you.

_I wish your eyes were a river so I could learn your waters and teach you to find your way into mine._

We’re still in my head but your mouth is on mine now and I have to keep reminding myself that it’s you.

_I wish I could kiss you._

I’m kissing you.

_Your mouth would open quietly, with a soft click, and I would press my lips to yours so tenderly, so articulately that maybe then you would understand._

I’m still staring at you and I’m worried that you can see everything that I want to see, slipping out and away into the air, seeping from my tear ducts and the holes in my ears.

_I’m standing in the kitchen and you are standing in the dying light of the afternoon._

I’m terrified that, right now, you know everything.

_We haven’t turned on any lights just yet._

You’re unimportant, I’m unimportant. Back to my head.

_Maybe, sometime soon, both of our axis will align perfectly and everything will fall into place._

So soft and so warm against my skin.

_Maybe I’ll forever be tied to this old anchor. I might even grow to love the weight of it._

I want to hold you to me forever, so tightly that neither you nor I shall be able to let go.

_Drown with me, look up, look up as you see the light in the surface of the water. Flickering, flickering, until it goes out completely._

Oh, something under my ribcage is singing and the same notes are being sung again and again at the undersides of my wrists and the base of my throat.

_You once told me that sometimes, a catalyst is the only thing which can really get a reaction to start. The only thing which can really get the ball rolling._

I am burning with music.

_We need a cataclysmic event._

You can’t hear it.

_Something volcanic. Prehistoric._

Somewhere, once, I am vulnerable and I think you are, too.

_Something that will shatter the ground and the air and the cells in our bones._

I want you I want you I want You

_There are some words but I can’t think what they are. I can’t think what I need to say._

But you could never want me. Here is the tragedy of all things.

_“I want you.” I try to fling the words towards your mouth but all I’m met with, for all my efforts, is silence._

We’re standing in the same room and I am probably breathing the same air which has plummeted over your every angle.

_We’re so close, we’re so close. It wouldn’t take much._

I want to press you up against a kitchen counter - or the wallpaper or the bathroom door or, perhaps, my own hands - and maybe I want you to also press me up against a kitchen counter - it doesn’t matter, don’t you see? - so that we may do something fatal and regrettable and believe we are wholly living.

_Only a few strides between us._

There’s a ticking, now; a distinct metronome.

_Only a few strides to hold you completely and to show you with my skin that we are not islands._

One: I am-

_We are not islands._

Two: Bleeding sheet music-

_I would give you anything but I can’t give you this._

Three: From my wrists and my neck-

_I have bled in your name but I couldn’t rip myself apart so definitely._

Four: But I have no instrument to play the silent melodies.

_Because that would mean you would have to rip yourself apart, too._

One: The cycle-

_It’s linear,_

Two: Repeats itself-

_this path we’ve chosen, it only heads in a singular direction._

Three: And for some reason-

_I say it to myself: “Onwards, onwards, onwards.” But unfortunately, I am a coward._

Four: I can’t ever stop the song from gushing out.

_And I think you’re a coward as well._

And you're still staring at me.

_And you're still staring at me._

And no one has anything to say.


End file.
